That would be fair if they were in a good place, but they got buffed because they were underperforming a lotta builds. That last buff put them in a good spot; not too good, not too bad, but now they're getting slapped again alongside every single caster build to boot. It's a global nerf to everybody who uses SP, regardless of how the build performs, simply because they want to limit PvP burst. Again, these changes could be targetted, but they're not, which means the global nerf was intentional. I guarantee you there's more than a few builds out there that really do not need this nerf, but are still getting it anyway.

I'm confused as to why you guys would buff hybrid builds to make them more viable, then turn right around and slap them with a nerf again. A 5% nerf to Mental Quickness alongside the Demonic Knowledge nerf is going to hit SP pretty harshly, and hybrid *needs* SP. If these changes were PvP only that would be one thing, but they'll hit PvE as well again with no compensation given. I get that you guys wanna balance PvP, and by all means please do so, by why do PvE builds keep getting slapped with global nerfs to both PvP and PvE when they could be targetted?

Yeah, I wouldn't entirely disagree with that, but the issue I'm feeling is that investing into it specifically just feels bad. It's okay as is, but sacrificing RE or talent space to improve it at the cost of other things never seems worth it. I like Lava Lash and want to build more around it, but doing so is pretty unsatisfying.

Currently Lava Lash still seems a bit unattractive even with it's buffs. If it weren't for the fact that it procs melee effects I probably wouldn't pick it at all.
That said, it's not a change directly related to the hybrid changes active, but is there any possibility the Lava Rush RE (Gives Lava Lash a chance to proc a 10% melee haste buff to your party) could be changed up a bit? It currently has 5 levels and stacks 5 times, but based on the testing I've done with the max rank available to me (rank 4 I believe) it seems to be a 20% proc rate, or similar with just one RE. A multiple RE investment doesn't seem worth it. If it could be normalized to a non-stacking, 2 rank RE (Blue and Epic, 25 and 50% proc respectively) it could make Lava Lash a bit more attractive.
Something similar could also be done with Hasted Eruption RE (CD reduction on Lava Lash), since stacking that many REs to reduce the cooldown by a few seconds just isn't worth. Perhaps 3 ranks, non-stacking, 1–1.5–2 seconds?
Not sure if this would solve all Lava Lash's problems or make it too good, but it's just my thoughts on the matter.

Seconded. This was one of the first things I thought of when I saw that as well. It just makes sense for it to have dual scaling anyways–hybrids are opting for both stats, not stacking just one like pure physical builds, so IMO the talent ought to reflect that.

Personally I really like the hunter 5 set proc itself, but like Renamed I feel that putting it on Aimed/Multi-shot is a huge waste. Multi-shot especially, there is next to no reason anyone should be using that over Volley in any situation. It's just simply out-performed in every way. The three set bonus though, that's a major letdown. I can only really echo what others have said, being that having the set bonus literally be a carbon copy of an RE/talent rank is a isn't exciting at all and goes against the entire goal of these set bonus changes.

Well I can admit when I'm wrong at least. Would you mind sending me what you used there? Assuming it's not using the snapshot bug, I want to see what the major difference is between the pet builds I've seen and the one you're using. I wasn't kidding when I said I haven't seen a pet build ever pull that much, so now I'm very curious.

And I can almost guarantee that is during high burst windows, not at all indicative of overall DPS. Lots of builds can easily achieve that sort of damage output during burst windows, and we don't see the kind of attention this is getting directed at them. Regardless, it's not that I don't think hunter pet builds shouldn't be looked at, but that this is completely the wrong way to do it. There are bugs and coding problems that need that have never been addressed, yet we get crippling nerfs in the name of 'utility'. I'm also not really interested in balancing hunter pets around the pet RE bug either. That's only going to make things worse in the long run, and that particular bug needs dealt with.
On another note, I actually completely agree that 12k claw crits are a bad thing. Any build putting out that kind of burst in PvP is bad news. It's the same reason people complain about TG. As I said before, I want pet builds to be fun and viable but not overpowering. But the kind of global nerfs with little return they're handing out are not a good answer to the problem. It's a knee-jerk reaction, and it's going overboard in the opposite direction.
I also don't believe that a name automatically makes someone right, but that's an argument for another day.

Have you...ever used Hunter pets? Actually used them in a build? I'm asking honestly, because the numbers you're quoting are actually absurd. Easy 4k DPS on a pet build, 3k afk? Please. The best hunter build I know of abuses the pet RE bug and still only breaks around 3.5k during cooldowns. I really don't even know where to begin with what you're saying, because it sounds 100% like you have no experience with what you're talking about. Saying BW+Go for the Throat alone makes up 15-20% of your damage with no other investment is an empty statement if you don't provide an overall damage amount for context. 15-20% may be a big percent number, but 15-20% of say, 1k, is still pretty terrible.
As for Cobra Strikes vs base crit, my argument there was more focused on the RE investment required. Sure, having both doesn't make the other entirely useless, but the return you'd get for investing 10 RE slots between the two? That is what I'd call a waste. And Kindred Spirits. You *do* understand that removing a bug that boosts damage still counts as a nerf, right? It's not uncommon for Dev teams on online games to actually revert bug-fixes in some cases where said bugs were actually healthy for the thing in question. Intentional or not, it was still a damage increase that is being reduced. That is what we call a nerf.
And base pet damage. Ooooh boy. You claim base pet damage is actually OP even with only Tame Beast, no other investment. Setting aside that this is the first time I've ever heard someone make that claim, this is my Devilsaur, on his own, attacking a lvl 60 dummy with me in full Dragonstalker's and him having Exotic boost, Kindred Spirits talent, Serpent's Swiftness talent, Frenzy talent, and his pet talents (Spider's Bite, Culling the Herd, Wild Hunt, etc)
If that's how much damage he's pulling on his own with investment, I fail to see how base hunter pet damage can possibly be considered OP. If Hunter pet builds are/were as incredibly overpowered as you say, where were they on any realm but Ravenholdt? In all the BGs I've done I've seen maybe two people using pet builds post Chimeara nerf, and their pets were getting practically globaled by TGs and the like. In PvE I've only seen maybe three serious hunter pet builds, and they struggled to break 2k, much less 3 or 4. Most powerful hunter build they were certainly not. The only hunter pet builds I've seen with viable BWL worthy DPS have all been abusing the pet RE bug, and the fact that they had to do so in order to get viable DPS is incredibly sad on it's own.
I would love to make an actual pet-focused build, but experience has shown that on Ascension it just isn't good enough. Maybe on Seasonal, where people haven't had as much time to fully gear and RE themselves to the teeth, they can out-perform other builds, but anywhere else? They are woefully inadequate.

Let me preface this by saying that aside from the seasonal realm, I've never heard anybody complain about hunter pet builds being a problem in PvP OR PvE. In PvP (non-seasonal) they tended to die extremely quickly due to the reduced HP pool from Ferocious companion, and lacked the defensives that players have access to. In PvE, even with fully stacked REs pet builds pulled sub-par damage–when they weren't dying to AoE and Cleave that they should have been avoiding if they were working properly. At least, this has been my experience with pet builds in Ascension.
Now, because of complaining on a temporary realm, pet builds are losing an immense amount of damage due to two of their major REs–Reliant Companion and Ferocious Companion, 50% and 35% damage increase respectively–being completely gutted and replaced by *one* RE, Cobra Strikes, that only boosts the activation rate of the talent with the same name. A talent that only makes your pet's next two attacks crit *if* you crit with Steady or Arcane. So not only do pet builds lose two REs crucial to boosting hunter pets' incredibly low damage in return for a mediocre one, but it's an RE that fulfills the same purpose another crucial pet RE, Ferocity, already does. Namely, boosting crit. Ferocity boosts pet Critical by 20% (At the max pre-BWL rank), while Cobra Strikes puts guaranteed pet ability crits on a proc. Both fulfill the same function, and having one makes the other largely a waste.
In reality, pet builds are losing two of their best REs merely for an alternative to one they already have. On top of this, they're nerfing Kindred Spirits again, so even more damage is lost. Hunter pet builds already performed below par compared to other options, especially in PvE, with faulty AI that still hasn't been fixed. If this is what was meant by giving pet builds more utility at the cost of damage, I really hope the dev team doesn't think the other builds in the game right now need more 'utility'. I want to still enjoy this server.
If anyone has an argument to the contrary, I would actually love to hear it. I want pet builds to be fun and viable without being oppressive, but this goes beyond that by a wide margin.

The issue is with your UI addons. I have the same problem with Bartender, the only solution I've found is that if you want to change up your totems you have to disable it temporarily, log in, fix your totems, then log back out and re-enable it. Honestly though, I've just gotten used to only having one set of totems on any given build.

Not to mention that boss fights tend to be unfriendly towards pets in general, often forcing them to be dismissed/put on passive due to mechanics (I.E. Chromaggus) or just outright killing them (I.E Shazzrah).